


I'm still here

by exaustedpidgeon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, I actually mention Rebecca in all of this, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, What if Bucky never fell and got to return home, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exaustedpidgeon/pseuds/exaustedpidgeon
Summary: What if Bucky never fell and actually got to return home. I had to write this in my native language and then translate it into English because it isn't my first language, pls be kind :c
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	I'm still here

It's over.

Steve stretches further, as far as he can, so much that their fingers almost touch. If they were in another context, this would all look like a painting, the moment before a contact so important, so desperate. 

It's over. He feels it, he's slipping.

Steve screams something, but the train is louder and covers his voice. The metal creaks and folds, and Bucky closes his eyes for a second as he forces his right arm onto the icy tube – he slips, but doesn't fall, not yet. 

-Grab my hand!- he hears him say.

Bucky stretches out. He stretches more.

The screeching of metal breaks his breath. A piece comes off. Screams. Ice.

Dark.

At least, he says to himself – at least it's me, not you. 

Bucky has his eyes closed while he thinks about it, but he doesn't feel the wind lashing violently on his back and as soon as he opens his eyes again Steve is there, holding hands with him, smiling in an evident outburst of anxiety that gripped him until a few seconds before. He pulls him up effortlessly (it feels strange to Bucky), touches his shoulders, face, hair – next to them, a HYDRA operator who's probably passed out, or dead, and the shield lying undisturbed.

-Bucky...- and he really only hears this after a few moments, -you're alive.-

\---

After that day in April 1944, the news of the return home had been strange. Bucky was discharged with Steve for a lot of issues that neither of them really understood – but the war was now coming at an end. In April 1945, a year later than that episode, as the greatest world conflict came to an end, they find themselves on a ship directed to Brooklyn, leaving everything behind (even Peggy, who Steve believes deserves better), from the sounds of bombs to the acrid smell of blood. The mud, the cold, the broken boots they brought with them, and the uniforms which once shone and which made them enormously proud – clean, new and embroidered with lies.

Bucky's gaze is absent while he holds on to the bunk, his back pressed to the mattress as if at any moment he could fall and become sea foam. Steve is a little further on, but he never really left him alone. He walks up and down, walking quickly, without taking his eyes off him for a second.

-You're givin me a headache, stop it...- he says it only after a while, while his legs tremble imperceptibly. There was a time when James Buchanan Barnes wasn't afraid of anything – indeed, a time when his only fear was losing Steve. Yet now, at the slightest rocking he can feel, his head explodes.

-Sorry.- Steve chuckles and his face is the brightest sun Bucky has ever seen. He sits on his bed next to Bucky's and watches him tremble, without adding much. It's funny how they can't find anything to talk about anymore.

-How long have we been traveling?-

-Five days.-

-Fuck.- As soon as Steve laughs again, Bucky looks away as if he hadn't expected it. -It takes too long.-

\---

Their eyes are lost again. Neither of them sleeps that night – their backs look at each other, each in their respective beds, on those mattresses where they seem to drown.

Bucky is curled up on himself, his eyes wide open against the perfectly white wall of the cabin. The sound of the sea is the only audible thing: they learned not to make noise even when they breathe.

-Steve ..- it's a risky, uncertain and fragile call, which breaks the silence and tension.

-Tell me.-

Bucky doesn't answer. He stretches an arm instead. Their beds are close enough for each other to touch, and he's addicted to that touch – and when Steve brushes his fingers, without despair, without fear, without the anxiety in the throat of those fatal moments, Bucky dies a little bit more.

They don't touch each other completely: it's an attempt, something to appease that dark lump that has formed in their chests. They look at each other, the dim light of the moon that enters through the porthole slightly delineates the profile of Bucky's nose, straight and perfect, and for a second they both look young and beautiful, without any fear.

It doesn't last long. Steve is the first to pull his hand back, surprisingly. He returns seated, looks at him, and they stare at each other for moments that seem like hours.

-I'm sorry.- he says. Concern grips him: what if he's triggered thoughts? What if it made him feel bad?

-It's okay, Steve...- Bucky smiles for the first time in two years and turns away, before returning to pretend to sleep.

\---

Brooklyn smells different.

Bucky's sister, Rebecca, has kept the old Barnes house well, taking care of it like a mother. Needless to say, she almost passed out once she learned about her brother's return. And Bucky hugged her, sweet, and smiled, and they cried a lot and had apologized to each other. And then Rebecca apologized to Steve, because she couldn't recognize him, and Steve laughed, and while he was telling her everything, Bucky jumped right into the shower and threw away those boots that made his feet blistered.

Water makes him live his memories in a more muffled, more peaceful way. Steve never knew what it really ment to fight a war: Bucky remembers when he was shot in the side. He loaded him on his shoulders without hesitating a second, almost disobeying the order to just run away, and he brought him to safety. With all that shit those doctors put in his veins, he thinks, he's become immune to bullets now.

He cannot explain it. Steve's body is clean, if it were not for the old signs still present on him, tiny and imperceptible. The slight hump of the nose. The small scar under his chin (august 1934, passed out as he climbed the flight of stairs of the tenement). For the rest, he's perfect, with white skin and his constellations of moles, and he notices it, when for one reason and another they find themselves passing by, naked – and Bucky perhaps dwells a little too much on those narrow hips .

-Wait.- he hears him say, softly, as if he's ashamed. - You ... can you stay?-

-Of course.- he answered too quickly.

It's a mystery how they find themselves taking a shower together again, touching themselves and running the soap over their shoulders. Steve is uncertain, he runs his hands gently on his chest, as if he could break him – Bucky instead washes him with impressive detail. At least to him, he thinks, I want to wash the blood away.

-You don't have to be afraid to touch me.- he whispers softly, while his right hand caresses his cheek, -It's still me, Steve. I didn't change my mind about you.

Maybe that's what Steve wanted to hear. Slowly, he sees Bucky leaning forward and resting his head on his shoulder, maintaining a ghostly silence, almost unnatural compared to a few seconds before. He sees him reach out his hand, and taking it. He guides him along his back, along the scars (which remained on him), the curve of the neck, the hair, the hips.

-You don't have to be afraid...- it's such a mild whisper.

The sun has gone down and the light is trembling on the walls of that far too small shower. Brooklyn has a different smell, but the noises that arise in the evening are always the same, as well as their thoughts as they explore each other with their hands, all in small attempts, palms on the skin, kisses on the eyelids, caresses on the scars. They're still afraid of touching each other gently. They're afraid of being able to hold each other like guns instead, of finding habits that, by now, exist for a time that seems so far away.

After the shower, they huddle in the bed that had once belonged to Bucky's parents. It's the first time in years that they feel dry air, that they feel clean, and the mattress is far too soft for them to sleep. The dark frightens them both – there are scarier things in the dark than ghosts, and they learned this at their expense, after two years of sleepless nights spent with bated breath. They hold hands, as if to say that they're still there, that neither of them is dead. They went home, dented and changed, and Steve's hand now seems so immeasurably large – but what Bucky can see is that his smile is always the same, printed at a time in the past.

-I'm here.-

-I know.-

And if Steve's smile still manages to be so kind, then the rest doesn't seem to be that bad after all.


End file.
